“Mother is such an invalid that it will be hard on her. She has a little money of her own, not much, but enough, Father says, to pay up every cent he owes and to keep me here until I graduate.”
“It must be a comfort, Margery, to feel that he will not owe any person a cent.”
“Yes, it is,” with an irrepressible sob, “but, oh, I want to be at home helping, but Father says that I can help best by going through and graduating. He was afraid of this, and that was the reason he was so determined that I should graduate here and be prepared to teach. Mother may need to depend upon me entirely some day, for, of course, Father is not young any more, and we have no near relatives; no one, at least, upon whom we would ever call for help.”
“You must be proud of the fact that your father can depend upon you, dear.”
“There is not much to be proud of. Just think, Beth, if I had not wasted so much of my time, I should be graduating this year. Now I cannot be of any help for nearly two years. That is the bitterest part of all. We have never been rich people, but Father made a comfortable living for us. I ought to have realized that it cost a great deal for him to send me here, and I should have made the most of my time–but I didn’t.”
“No one could have done better than you have been doing lately, Margery.”
“But I cannot make up that lost year. That is the dreadful part of it. Repentance doesn’t take away the consequences of one’s folly, does it? We have to pay for it all. Just now, when I ought to be in a position to help at home, I am only an added burden. Father has seen this coming for years, but I did not know it. He lost many thousands of dollars in a great bank failure four years ago. He has never quite recovered from that blow. If there had not been several failures lately, though, among people who owed him money, he would have managed to pull through.”
“But you knew nothing of all this, Margery, so do not blame yourself too severely.”
“I knew that Father was not rich, and I ought not to have wasted my time. I know that I must graduate now, if I would teach, but it is dreadfully hard to think that I must use up my mother’s little pittance for it.”
“But she wants you to take it, dear, and I am sure that the best thing you can do for your parents, now, is to be cheerful and happy. You will probably have many long years in which to work for them both; and really, Margery, you are working for them now just as truly as if you were earning money for them.”